Who Are You?

I’ll be 32 next month. I met Brian when I was 22. Going on 10 years of knowing this man, 8 years of being together, next May marks our 5th year wedding anniversary, and I’m just now realizing how little (and how much!) I know about him.

We got into a nasty fight a few weeks ago. Ok, the washer is broken. So ok, we’ve been jerking around getting another washing machine in the house. So ok, a laundrymat is right around the corner, no biggie. But hey! the dryer still works fine. So I’m washing a few things out by hand one fine morning because I was in a time crunch. I had to be at my 3rd shift job at 10pm, Iyende was in a school play that started at 7pm, I had some prep work to do for a site design free-lance job I got that had to be done by 5pm, and I had to write a paper for school that was already late. And yeah, I needed to catch at least 2 hours of sleep, too, and spend quality time with the kids. I simply did not have time to go to the laundrymat that day. In addition to an outfit I still needed clean drawers, right? Not like I’m a stickler for wearing drawers all the time, but sheesh, last thing I need is to have a stroke or something at work and folks discover I got no panties on. This might be America, but I might as well be under the fucking taliban when it comes to a mother and a wife’s supposed immorality if she’s found to have no drawers on.

Anyway, I was wringing everything out real tight, and Brian has a fit when I put them in the dryer, actually came down in the basement, took my clothes out of the dryer, and flung them all around the basement after I told him he was being silly for not wanting me to use the dryer. Now, maybe you have a nice and tidy basement, but we live in an old, old house with an old-school, dirty cellar floor, leaks-when-it rains basements. So my clothes got all dirty.

I was upset, but I just picked them up and told him he was being silly and I was just going to wash them again and put them in the dryer again, so what was he gonna do? Old boy then unplugged the dryer, followed me upstairs, took my dirty clothes that I was going to re-wash and then flung them outside over the balcony!!! All the while raving incoherently about how I was going to “burn the house down” because I was putting sopping wet clothes into the dryer. Whatever! I did wring everything out tight-tight, in all honesty they were probably wrung much tighter than a washing machine would have done. I was broke-poor for years, washed my clothes in the tub for years long before I met Brian because I didn’t even have enough ends to go to a laundry mat, so I know about wringing out clothes. Ya heard?!

One thing I valued about Brian, as a friend and then as my man, was that he was quiet and capable and seemed to be emotionally balanced all the time. He seemed like a peaceful man, a peace-loving man, something I craved and needed. Now 10 years later he’s throwing my stuff out the window? I watched him raving and wondered, who is this man? Where did he come from?

Later he apologized to the kids for pitching such a fit, and much later apologized to me. I apologized as well, ’cause really it was no big deal. I think if he had asked me nicely from jump I would have been like, ok, fine. But he came down the basement all sarcastic and condescending, saying stupid stuff to me like, you’re gonna start a fire. What? That still cracks me up, I mean HOW can you start a fire putting wet clothes into a DRYER. That is the machine’s function, to DRY clothes. Ok. It’s over and done with.

It was such a stupid fight and a complete waste of my time, and the kids were just appalled. At Iyende’s play I didn’t even say a word to him, I was actually surprised he even came to sit with me and the boys. Knowing Brian like I do I figured he just picked a fight in the first place so that he could have an excuse to sit with his mom during the play instead of me. He’s got loyalty issues like you wouldn’t believe, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. (And one battle I’ve surrendered: Ok, so I’m number 2 woman in his life. Mom is number 1. I got it. I’m over it.) Guess I was wrong. I’m still wondering what that fight was really all about…maybe he really believed I’d start a fire or something, maybe I should just take him at face value. But after nearly a decade of knowing my husband, he rarely says anything out-right, he always means something else. Sigh. Ok, it’s over and done with, I should quit thinking about it.

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